I went to a show tonight. I went somewhere without my baby tonight. This is very exciting, isn’t it? Tonight Ingrid Michaelson played at the Wonder Ballroom, and I decided that, while the odds may be against me, I am going to go. Ingrid Michaelson is one of my most favorite artists. I love, love, LOVE her songs and even went to see her last year when she was in town, when she was merely an opening act for some dude at the Aladdin on Halloween. Tonight she was headlining at the Wonder Ballroom. The other big difference between these nights? Her show last year was my last before getting pregnant a few weeks later. Tonight’s show: my first since having a baby. This didn’t hit me until she came out and started to sing her first song, and continued to hit me throughout the night with every song she sang. Going to see her tonight was a really powerful reminder of how much my life has changed in the past year, and of the fact that I never got to say goodbye to my old life before it so abruptly changed. I wasn’t expecting to feel so emotional about it, but I guess that goes hand in hand with the whole “having a baby” thing. Regardless, I am glad I went, because I had forgotten how energizing it is to see an artist you love live, and that is definitely exactly what I needed right now.
The classic Ingrid song…major flashback to Fall 2007:
And my personal favorite…this one is fun because you can hear Emily and Keely getting excited about it, and then we all sing along:
1. How I am spending my last weeks of maternity leave (Surprise! Unproductively!)
2. The debacle of the house flooding.
3. How much I hate the dogs.
4. Our trip to Colorado!
5. Holland’s two month update.
6. Election night
7. How Baby Einstein products have improved my life.
8. Holland’s discovery of her hands and of screaming for no reason.
9. How is it possible that I have lost 45 pounds and still have 25 more to lose? HOW????
10. What a pathetic blogger I have become.
Lots going on around here… plenty of excuses as to why I haven’t been blogging. Sunday morning our house flooded because some hot water pipe or tube or something under the sink in the kitchen broke. Thankfully I wasn’t here, but I arrived home to something out of the Twilight Zone. Everything was wet, moved around, out of order. I couldn’t find my mom or my brother, but both of the dogs were loose and the stove was on. Uh…apparently the water had stretched clear from one side of the house to another, and was ankle deep. It took them all morning to get all the water out of the house, and I am sure they were cursing my absence the entire time. Yesterday we had a guy come look at our most likely ruined hardwood floors, and starting today he is going to be attempting to save them by running some sort of giant fans or something…which means we can’t sleep in our bedrooms, because they come right off the hall with the wet floors. AWESOME. I am going to be a nomad for the next three to five days, sleeping at the homes of various friends. Always a fun adventure to be homeless when you have a baby. Can’t wait! Other fun side effects of the flood are, once the fans are hooked up we can’t use our dryer, so that means no laundry. And up until last night we had no hot water in the sink in the kitchen, which meant boiling water in the hot pot if you wanted to do dishes. Luckily, I never find myself wanting to wash dishes. Joe managed to fix the pipe (tube?) problem under the sink though, and now we have hot water again. Thanks, Joe the Plumber!
In other news, Holland had her pictures taken professionally this last weekend. The photographer’s name is Sarah Costa, and she has posted some of the shots on her flickr account. I anxiously check back every so often to see if she has added any more. If you want to see all the pictures in their glory, this is the link:
http://flickr.com/photos/sarahcosta/sets/72157608223748226/
They are AMAZING!
In an effort to get myself writing, here is a list of five random things about me. This is a total cop-out, but my brain doesn’t work very well anymore.
1. I salt my grilled cheese sandwiches. A habit I picked up from an ex-boyfriend. It sounds weird but is sooo good. Because the butter and cheese just aren’t enough…
2. My views on abortion changed drastically after getting pregnant. I am a true liberal at heart and would still NEVER vote pro-life, but I definitely have a different opinion on when life “begins.”
3. I would never wear shoes if I didn’t have to. I am barefoot most of the time, and prefer that to having anything on my feet. Being on maternity leave is great because I am always in my pajamas. I have a HUGE collection of shoes that I haven’t worn in months, and it is going to take some getting used to when I have to start wearing them again.
4. When I was in kindergarten I wanted to be an archaeologist when I grew up. I used to spend hours digging around looking for “fossils” because someone told me that rocks were really dinosour eggs. This older boy at our apartment complex playground used to make fun of me about it constantly and successfully squashed my dreams. I am pretty sure he a drug addict now.
5. I AM REALLY EXCITED TO GO BACK TO WORK! I always thought that being a stay-at-home-mom would be the most fun job ever…but I am getting bored in a big way. I love my baby a lot, but I am looking forward to the day that I can pay someone else to watch her for a few hours so I can go interact with grown-ups and use my brain.
A couple days before the beginning of the month I wrote out a bunch of goals for myself, collectively entitled “Get Your Life Together, Alexia.” There were around 10 total, including things like “lose 30 pounds” and “blog daily,” among several others that I either don’t feel like sharing or can’t remember at this moment. Clearly, I have not dedicated too much of my time or energy to Project Getting Life Together, as I have not yet lost the rest of my baby weight (I have lost 37 lbs, but it was all in September, and thus, does not count towards this month’s goal) and I definitely haven’t been blogging on any sort of regular basis. Don’t worry, I haven’t been doing any of that other stuff either. So with a month left before I go back to work, I have decided it’s time to get serious. I will be blogging on some sort of regular schedule from here on out. I am also going to lose the rest of my baby weight so I can actually fit in my work clothes, and I might even take a look at those other goals and see what else I need to be doing. Updates in blog form will ensue.
What have we been up to instead of being productive, you ask? Holland and I are both feeling pretty under the weather at the moment. I am officially sick, a result of my lack of sleep, and she is TEETHING! I couldn’t figure out yesterday why she was being so fussy…One minute happy, the next minute crying. Also, drooling. Lots of that too. My mom suggested that she might be teething, since I started that at 6 weeks, so I took a look in her mouth, and lo and behold, two little white spots on the roof of her little mouth. Combine this new discomfort with her growing ability to “talk”, and this is what you get:
She really likes to tell me all about it.
Dear Holland Isla (Baby H, HIR, Holly Dolly, Muffin, Busy Bottoms…)
Two days ago you turned one month old. Exactly one month ago today, we were checking out of the hospital in NW Portland and getting ready to come home. You wore the purple onesie that Eryn bought for you back in December, the day after I made my final decision regarding my surprise pregnancy. She bought us two onesies and two pregnancy books while we were out at Lloyd Center that Saturday in late December. All we could talk about was you, even though you were still more of an idea than a real baby. The thought of having an actual BABY was still a very abstract concept to me, one that I couldn’t even wrap my brain around. Now, nine months later, you are here, and you have been here a whole month. You are wearing the clothes and using the baby stuff that people bought for me during my pregnancy, things I used to look at to cheer myself up when I was feeling miserable and sad and hating life. Pregnancy was not fun for me. Being single and going through it all alone, watching my friends go out and have fun without me, and spending more time alone than I ever have in my whole life made for a not great 2008. But now, you are here. You are here and we hang out every day and it’s so fun.
You are mostly an easy baby, and for that, I am grateful. We never had any trouble with breastfeeding. You ate well and often from day one. You let me sleep almost totally through the night most nights, waking up only around 4am to eat. You are learning how to manipulate me a little. You know that if you try hard enough after your early morning feeding, you will end up in bed with me for the rest of the morning instead of your bassinet. You rarely cry, and if you do it means I am either not moving fast enough when you are hungry and demanding I feed you, or that your stomach hurts. In the past couple weeks I have learned I need to completely avoid anything spicy. It upsets your stomach so badly that you scream and scream. The first time this happened I called your doctor’s office hysterically crying because I thought you were having a seizure and/or dying. I had never seen you cry like that and thought something was seriously wrong. The nurse was more concerned about me than you, I think. She even called back later to check on us (me). Somedays are rough, and you won’t take a nap, or you want to eat all day, and I think I will lose my mind. Somedays I am so tired I feel like I can’t function anymore. Those days I hand you off to your grandma when she gets home from work for a little while, so I can eat something, or get some rest. She dotes on you way more than she could have ever possibly doted on Joe or me (she insists that isn’t true), so you should feel pretty special.
You look just like you did when I dreamt about you back in December. A little brown baby with round cheeks, almond eyes and tons of hair. Almost all of your features are identical to your father’s, and you look just like him when you smile. I notice a lot of me in your behavior, though. You are extremely vocal, LOUD, and love to make noise. At 4am you will chatter away for a solid two hours sometimes, just talking to yourself. You are kind of a drama queen, and really goofy. You smile and laugh constantly. You make me laugh out loud on a daily (hourly) basis.
This month was a busy one for us. When you were one week old we started venturing out on our own. We went to Portland for the first time when you were ten days old. We went to Nordstrom and I got my hair cut, and you slept the whole time. We have visited my co-workers downtown, my family members in North Portland, friends around the city, and we see your dad at least twice a week. Quinn came to visit a couple weeks ago, and that was our busiest weekend yet. You came with me to three different restaurants, and to Hagg Lake on two different days. One of those days was for Quinn’s triathlon, and we got up at 6am to watch Quinn compete. You were the youngest baby there, snuggled away in your sling, and people kept coming up to us to look at you and tell me how beautiful you are. I get that a lot. You are truly the most beautiful baby I have ever seen. I don’t mean that like, Oh, you are my baby and therefore I think you are beautiful (although I do), I mean, strangers pay you compliments EVERYWHERE we go on how pretty, perfect, beautiful and gorgeous you are. It’s amazing, although I am a little worried it might start going to your head once you are old enough to understand. You are loved and adored by so many people, I think you are going to grow up thinking you are the center of the universe. And you are, so it’s probably okay.
Yesterday we visited your future daycare and hung out in the baby room for a while. The thought of leaving you somewhere scares the crap out of me, but I really like your daycare and know that you will be safe there. The other babies seemed so much bigger than you, moving around, picking things up on their own. I can’t imagine you being that size, but you will be in just a few months. I found myself daydreaming about your first birthday yesterday, planning what next August would be like and what you would be like, and what our lives would be like in a year. We have lots of time ahead of us, and I am really excited that you are here and we get to do it all together.
Love you!
MOM
So…it’s been a while. I don’t know why I stopped writing here. It’s definitely not because I am too busy. Sure, I have a newborn, but if anything that keeps me home and doing even less than before. Holland and I do a lot of sitting around…watching tv…eating…drinking wine (okay, that’s me, not her). And we are online a lot. So really, I have no excuse. I just feel a lot less interesting now that I am no longer pregnant. Now I am just regular Alexia, with an unusually cute baby.
Holland will be one month on Sunday, which is unbelievable. The past month has gone by really fast, and I feel like she has been here forever. September has been possibly the least productive month of my entire life. Besides the months after I graduated from college in 2004 and did nothing but sunbathe during the day and go out at night. Ah, youth. Funny, I was also living at home during that time. And not working. Just like now! Not working is not good for me. I get really lazy. I am really bad at staying on a schedule and staying structured on my own, which I think is something that might be important when one has a newborn. Excuse me, a four-week-old. But loosely, this is our day: Wake up around 4am, Holland chatters away in her bassinet until I wake up and feed her. At that point she gets to sleep with me, because I am too tired to put her back to bed. We wake up at some point during The Today Show, and stay in bed until The View comes on. Then we get up, let the dogs out, and go to room we call “the great room” at my house. Because it’s so great? Ask my mom about that one. Anyway, I go online for a while, and at some point we go to McDonald’s so I can get a diet coke. Then we come home and I make something like a grilled cheese sandwich for lunch. I eat a lot of grilled cheese. I have rediscovered my hatred of cooking, and very often will go without eating rather than exert the energy necessary to make a meal for myself. Afternoons are often spent visiting people in Portland or running errands in Portland, or generally finding an excuse to go to Portland, because Vancouver bores us. Evenings we usually hang out at home, with my mom and brother (bonus points when they cook for us). I tend to either fall asleep at 7pm or stay up until 2am, depending on how much Holland is sleeping and/or letting me sleep that day. Sometimes people come to visit us in the evenings, although that is starting to die off.
Sometimes I go three days without showering. Sometimes I look at myself and at Holland, decide we look like a couple of ragamuffins, and get us both cleaned and dressed cute and leave the house, just to feel like a human being. Luckily for me, Holland is super easy to transport, and really doesn’t mind all the field trips I take her on. Getting out of the house is my saving grace these days, as I feel like I am in some weird state of limbo, like my life is on hold. I live with my mom. I am not working. I have this huge responsibility of a newborn, and at the same time, no responsibility at all.
I am going to start blogging again, on what will hopefully be a regular basis. I have no excuse, and Holland is starting to get really judgemental about how unproductive I am (”Mom, you suck!” Love, Holland.)
Thursday, August 28th: Around five AM Nurse Jen came in to take my vitals. Envisioning myself stuck in bed for the next week or so, I asked her if I could possibly have a fresh gown and maybe brush my teeth and hair. I also threw up a couple more times (Dignity, Dignity, where oh where have you gone?). She kindly helped me freshen up, and then said it was time for the dreaded check of the stubborn cervix. I braced myself for the worst (”one and three quarters dilated! Maybe you will have a baby sometime before Halloween!”) and was thrown completely off guard when she announced “Five centimeters!” Holy crap, are you serious? Her pitocin magic tricks must have worked, because all of a sudden, my body was cooperating. I asked her how long she thought it would be before Holland was born, and she said that generally it takes about an hour per centimeter, and then to expect about two or three hours of pushing. That put Holland’s ETA somewhere around 1pm. I rounded up to 2pm for good measure.
Unfortunately, Nurse Jen’s shift was about over, and it was time for my day nurse to come aboard the labor ship. Around that time Emily woke up and I shared the good news with her. After she left for work I called my mother, who was just waking up. I told her that there would be a baby today after all, but not to hurry because it wouldn’t be until later in the afternoon. This was around 7:15am. Nurse Debi came by to introduce herself and see if I needed anything. I mentioned that I might be feeling contractions through my epidural, and she said it might be running low again, and to let her know if it got painful. It didn’t hurt, so I didn’t really give it another thought. A little later Jen (Friend Jen, not Nurse Jen) came by to visit before work. While she was there I kept feeling the same something through my epidural. Still nothing painful, just pressure. Soon Jen had to leave for work, and I sat in my room, watching the Today Show, happily and nervously anticipating the day’s events. I started to wonder about the contractions I was feeling. They were a lot lower than the ones from the day before. Was I feeling the urge to push? I convinced myself that I was just overly-eager about having the baby, and that it was highly unlikely that I was anywhere near ready to push. So I ignored the feeling (the feeling that was coming stronger and stronger, every few minutes) and continued to watch the Today Show.
About an hour of this passed, and then a doctor came in. I knew that my doctor wouldn’t be available to deliver my baby that day, he had explained to me the day before that he couldn’t be there because of a scheduling conflict, but one of his partners would be. The woman taking his place was very sweet and friendly, and I decided I liked her. I told her about the feeling I was having, and she suggested that she take a look and see what was going on. The next words out of her mouth were “Oh! Your baby’s head is RIGHT there! I need to go change!” She looked around the empty room next and asked me if anyone was supposed to be there with me. I told her my mom was on her way, but that I wasn’t sure where she was. The doctor told me that we didn’t have time to wait, but she would change as slowly as possible to give my mom time. She then exited the room, crossing paths with my mom on her way out (phew!).
And THEN, it was ACTION TIME. The bright lights came on, my nurse and the baby nurse came in, the lower half of the bed disappeared from beneath me, the stirrups came up, and the doctor and all her doctor tools arrived. I remember feeling really nauseous and shaking a lot (My mom: “You are cold, you need a blanket.” Me: I am not cold, I am just shaking.” My mom: You are cold, I’ll get you a blanket.”), but feeling really excited and not scared at all. Again, god bless the epidural. At around 9:40 I started pushing. My thoughts during that time included being amazed it didn’t hurt, thinking that if my mom took any unattractive pictures of me I would kill her, and marveling at how skinny my legs looked up in the stirrups. The nurse and doctor kept telling me “good job! we can see her head!” and I didn’t believe them, because it was too easy. Then all of a sudden, at exactly 10:18am, less than 40 minutes from when we started pushing, there was CRYING, and a BABY, and my mom’s exact words were “Alexia! She is beautiful! She doesn’t look like you! She is so beautiful! She doesn’t look like you at all!” They put her on my chest and put a warm blanket over us. Boom. Just like that. Holland got really quiet right away, and just stared at me with her huge eyes. I was in complete shock, like I was watching this happen to someone else. They turned off my epidural and doctor finished up down below, stitching me up and all that fun stuff. There was a lot of other activity going on around me that I don’t remember, I was in such a daze. One thing I do remember is how excited I was to get THREE beautiful, magical ibuprofen (forbidden while pregnant, and my personal painkiller of choice), three packets of delicious saltines, and a glass of ice water (and NOT throwing up afterwards!).
The next few hours saw Holland’s first bath, the beginning of the flurry of visitors our room would see over the next two days, the stress of learning to breastfeed, and a lot of staring at my amazing, beautiful baby. I spent the rest of the day showing off Holland, calling/texting/IMing/emailing people and trying to rest. I stayed up until 3AM that night, watching my baby, making sure that she was still breathing, afraid that if I went to sleep she wouldn’t be there when I woke up. Two and a half weeks later, I am happy to report that she is still amazing, still beautiful and still here (and I still wake up every night just to check).
My mother clearly ignored the no unattractive pictures rule. This is me seeing Holland for the first time. We both look pretty worn out.
MY FIRST MEAL! Sooo excited. I ate this and also had my mom bring me up another meal from the cafeteria.
Super Relaxed Baby Holland after her first bath. This is when we first discovered her love of getting her hair washed.
We both look a little more pulled together in this picture. An hour or so after her birth.
Wednesday, August 27th: Day two. In my mind this day goes on forever. There were close to no pictures taken (a good sign that things were not going well) and my memory is a bit hazy because of the various traumas and medications I experienced. In any case, here it is.
We were woken at 6am after less than three hours of sleep by a nurse who brought me some toast and informed me she would be inserting my IV. I have never had an IV before, and I have had my blood drawn only once before. Needles really scare me. A lot. I was so nervous about the IV being inserted that my stomach started to hurt, so I couldn’t eat my toast (something I would regret hours later when I wasn’t able to eat and 24 hours had passed since my last meal). First the nurse gave me a shot in my left forearm, to numb the area she would be poking with the needle. She then attempted, no less than six times, to insert the IV into several different veins. She gave up and sent in another nurse, who inserted the IV on my other arm on the first try. I had an IV because I tested positive for beta strep, and needed antibiotics during labor to keep from passing it to the baby. (Science Class Time: Beta Strep is a naturally-occurring bacteria carried by about 25% of women. It is harmless to us but can be passed on to the baby, causing inflammation of the lungs or spinal cord, and even meningitis. Eek!) Emily left for work around that time, and about an hour later my mom arrived. I had been napping, waking up when she walked through the door, and almost immediately throwing up. I have no idea why. The nurse started me on some anti-nausea meds in my IV after that. The morning was uneventful. My contractions were inconsistent, I was exhausted, etc. Nothing was really happening.
My doctor arrived around lunchtime to break my water. Everyone assured me it wouldn’t hurt a bit. Guess what? IT HURT A LOT. A whole fucking lot. Not to mention being gross and messy for hours afterwards. Ew. My mom jokingly made the comment around this time that if I was still only a centimeter dilated that she would be taking me home. So when my doctor checked my cervix and told us that I was 1.5 centimeters, we decided that the half centimeter was probably added for our benefit. We hoped that things would start to move along faster now that my water was broken, and at first they seemed to. My contractions started really hurting, which we took as a positive sign. I walked around the hospital a little, sat on the exercise ball. Unfortunately, moving around was tough because of the IV, and sitting in bed is not really a fun place to be when you are having contractions. By about 5:30pm, I’d had enough and asked for an epidural. I think this was right around the time Emily got off work and rejoined us in the Birthing Suite of Fun. I got some Fentanyl in my IV to tide me over while we were waiting for the anesthesiologist. It didn’t do much for the pain but put me in a waaaaaay better mood. Around 6pm the lovely and beautiful anesthesiologist arrived. I was pretty freaked out about the idea of the epidural. I kept replaying the conversation I’d had with Chantelle a few days prior about her epidural experience to calm myself down (she said she was really scared about it too, but couldn’t even feel it when they put it in.) I think the narcotics they had given me in the previous hour probably helped me deal with it a little better. It was mostly the IDEA of what was going to happen that was scary, more than what I actually physically felt (that held true for a lot of my experiences that day). I got three shots in my spine to numb the area (I only felt the first one) and then she inserted the epidural. I felt nothing. And then, when she was done, I REALLY felt nothing. It was amazing. I finally got to rest for the first time in so many hours. The bed suddenly felt so much more comfortable, and I was no longer snapping at my mother. They gave me a catheter right after the epidural, which is icky, but I don’t really remember what it was like. I definitely didn’t feel anything.
I have very little memory of the hours that followed. I know Emily called and texted a lot of people who were wanting updates. I remember checking my facebook and myspace accounts and having a lot of “OMG you must have had the baby by now!” messages from people, which made me feel like a huge disappointment. I was starving, and of course, not allowed to eat. My nurse brought me a popsicle. I ate a quarter of it and then threw up. Awesome. Sometime that night someone checked my cervix (I can’t remember if it was my nurse or my doctor. It could have been the lady who emptied the trash for all I know). I was not any more dilated than I had been that morning. I was very sad. Since my water had been broken, there was a pretty strict period of time that the baby needed to be born in before we started risking infection. I thought for sure I was going to need a C-section, as contractions were getting me absolutely nowhere. I told my mom to go home and get some rest since clearly, there would be no baby tonight. I told Emily the same thing but she decided to stay. At some point Alana came by to visit, bringing magazines. I was so out of it, I don’t even remember talking to her. That night my lovely nurse Jen, whom I loved, consulted with my doctor and then decided to turn off my pitocin and start over again. She made it her personal goal in life to help me avoid a C-section, and told me so. My doctor came by to give me a pep talk (your cervix looks MUCH better today than it did yesterday! You are still only 1.5cm dilated but it is such a more attractive 1.5 centimeters!) Around 10pm, I fell asleep. I was woken up a few times that night by Nurse Jen, who had to flip me from one side to the other when Holland’s heart rate started to fall, or when she needed to take my blood pressure and temperature, or when my epidural medicine ran low and needed to be replenished. I was so out of it I barely even remember these interactions. I do remember throwing up a couple more times, caused by drinking some water. My legs were so numb I couldn’t even feel them. It was bizarre. I had dreams (nightmares) the whole night of being stuck in the hospital permanently, unable to move or get out of bed. I was 100 percent convinced that the next day I would be getting a C-section, and had very little hope left at that point of things going the way I wanted them to.
The only picture taken that day. Right after I got hooked up to the IV earlier that morning. Notice the uneaten toast.
Next time: Thursday, August 28th
Twelve days later, I finally feel like I have the energy to attempt writing this all out. It’s going to be long, as the process leading up to Holland’s birth was a hellish, neverending experience, so I am breaking it up by day. Here goes.
Tuesday, August 26th: Two weeks ago today. I was supposed to check into the hospital to get induced at 8pm. Getting induced was not my ideal birth scenario (oh, how my hippie la la Birthing From Within class would be shaking their heads at me right now) but I decided to for a variety of reasons, including my doctor thought it was a good idea and HEY! I WAS REALLY TIRED OF BEING PREGNANT. The biggest reason had to do with insurance things I won’t get into. Basically, I needed to not be pregnant in September, and the way things were going, it was looking like I might be. So. Procrastination being my middle name and all, I still had quite a bit to do on Tuesday before I could go to the hospital. I worked my ass off all day, getting my room ready, packing, etc. I think all of the physical exertion of the day (definitely not part of my normal pregnant routine) may have had a hand in the contractions I started having at 6pm. I was soooo excited, finishing up everything and getting ready to take a shower, when the hospital called and CANCELED my induction. UGHHHHHHHHHHH. I was so upset, as my previous blog post states. In truth, they were only postponing it, but all I heard was CANCEL CANCEL CANCEL! I thought for sure they wouldn’t be able to get me in later in the night or in the morning like they said. I thought now I really was going to be pregnant forever. FOREVER. Blame the dramatics on being nine months pregnant. I texted my brother and told him to bring home ice cream, got in bed and started watching the democratic convention. Watching Hilary’s speech actually cheered me up (yay, go democrats!) and I started feeling a little better. Then, at around 9pm, the hospital called. I could check in at midnight! Yay!
At 11:30pm, my mom and I drove out to NW Portland, parked and found our way to Labor & Delivery. Emily met us there. My room was really nice. Huge, with a pull out bed and a flat screen tv and wireless and all the other amenities one needs while birthing. My doctor came in to say hi and let me know some good/bad news. Since I was having contractions on my own, they wouldn’t be able to induce me like planned. They had wanted to use something called miso (???? I am assuming it is different than the soup. Or maybe not? Induction Through Soy?) to get my stubborn cervix going, and then start pitocin in the morning if necessary. Since I was having contractions on my own, they couldn’t do the miso anymore. So the plan changed to me going to sleep and seeing where we were at in the morning. Hopefully in labor! Oh, how naive we were. My mom stayed while they got me all hooked up to the monitors, and then took off to go home and get some sleep. Emily and I chatted for a while, too excited to sleep. A nurse brought me a couple Ambien and told me to get some rest. I took the Ambien, hesitantly, since prescription medicine tends to make me act really loopy. However, I knew I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep otherwise. About an hour after taking it, I got up to go into the bathroom. I could feel myself talking and moving a lot slower. I looked in the mirror, and my face looked different. I called Emily into the bathroom and asked her if the mirror was magnified. She told me it was not. I told her that my face was moving, and looked like a drawing of my face, not my real face. I also informed her that my nose was moving and my eyebrows were growing. She took a picture of me to show me in the morning that none of these things were actually happening. After that I stopped fighting it and went to bed, thinking we would meet Holland in just a few short hours! It was about 3:30am, and I had no idea what I was in for the following day, the day Holland refused to be born.
This is just the beginning. Thank god for wireless internet.
I would come to despise those monitors.
My nose is moving! And my eyebrows are growing! Aaaah! A portrait of Ambien-induced hallucinations.
Next time: Wednesday, August 27th.
